


Independence Day

by lynadyndyn



Series: Sasuke Came Home [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: I still like this fanon though, M/M, anyway I wrote this a million years ago, is there a moping tag?, of course there is a moping tag, so it's been jossed like roughly fourteen times, this is ao3, what am I saying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:37:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynadyndyn/pseuds/lynadyndyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Anbu’ was Sasuke’s first thought and it took him a minute to work out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Independence Day

The prisoner’s face was sallow and waxen, his expression troubled in his sleep. Sakura had explained that restraints often produced restlessness of a sort in unconscious patients. Being comatose wasn’t as delicate or immobile a state as most people thought; there were still brainwaves and muscle spasms and bowel movements, probably still dreams. But a person in Sasuke’s condition had no conscious explanation for the restriction and so no reason to keep still. Sai figured that if anyone knew, Sakura did, and accepted her diagnosis with a nod.

Sakura was only slightly more robust than her patient. The shadows under her eyes were the same mottled swollen blue as the bruises circling down her neck to her arms. She wavered on her feet as she checked Sasuke’s vitals and her voice was weak as she gave Sai careful instructions about what to do when he woke up, reedy with suppressed anxiety. Sakura had been a good template for figuring out how people acted when they felt certain ways. Her thoughts drifted through her eyes like clouds on a bright morning. Naruto was even more helpful as a guide. He had very few emotions he did not specifically and vocally explicate.

“He shouldn’t wake up before I’m available again,” Sakura had said, tapping her foot and looking down at it, like the movement was independent and surprising. “But, well… we don’t know exactly what Orochimaru… what was done to him. It’s possible his stamina has increased. If anything happens, alert one of the medical nins on staff, and I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sai said, hoping it was calming. She had been in the hospital all night, hovering over Sasuke’s bed after she had run out of things to do. She had given Sai detailed written instruction, five pages worth. Writing things down, making them permanent and accessible, was antithetical to most ninja. Sai wondered what it meant.

Sakura had only given him medical instructions on what to do when Sasuke woke up. The Hokage had filled in the rest of his assignment and those orders would never be written down.

“You should go,” he continued. “Before it starts. I’ll follow procedure, don’t worry.”

“I know,” Sakura said in that clipped voice that meant she was irritated and distracted. "Thank you," she added, remembering to be more kindly. She walked over to the bed and stood watching Sasuke frown in his sleep silently for ten seconds before she bent down and brushed her lips over his forehead.

“Sleep well, Sasuke-kun,” she said, before taking the window. It faced east, closer to the stadium grounds than the door.

Sai had read that parents kiss their child goodnight to soothe them into sleep, but Sasuke’s face remained tight after she left. Sai sat down, his scroll and brush resting on his knees, guarding one of Konoha’s most potentially dangerous missing-nins as the muscles in his wrists and ankles twitched beneath the restraints, his posture impossibly tense, as if sensing the elaborate and still-drying seal painted on the floor beneath the hospital bed.

**

‘Anbu’ was Sasuke’s first thought and it took him a minute to work out why.

The agent wasn’t looking at him, although that didn’t suggest he wasn’t watching, saying something over a comm channel too softly for Sasuke to make out. His tattoo was in Sasuke’s direct line of sight, although he wasn’t wearing a mask. Sasuke couldn’t figure out what the implications of that were. He felt he should be irritated at himself for that.

The Anbu finished his transmission and turned to Sasuke. “Good afternoon.”

Sasuke didn’t see a need to respond. He was picking up on his surroundings now. He was bound. He was too weak to have much chakra. Everything hurt, especially his leg. He was on a bed that felt too small and too soft. The Anbu was a Konoha ninja.

Naruto won. He realized that before any auxiliary information trickled in. Naruto must have won.

“I was instructed to ask if you wanted more pain medication if you woke up,” the Anbu said, pleasantly and with a polite, empty smile. “You’re connected to a drip - you can see it on your left. Do you want pain medication?”

Training told him no, stay alert, but the training had been specific to one task and it had been accomplished. Besides, whatever the pressure behind his breastbone meant, it wasn’t a sign he was very alert to begin with. “…Yes,” Sasuke said.

The Anbu nodded, stood up, pressed a button by the bed. Through the feathery influx of whatever it was, Sasuke began to realize the Anbu looked familiar. Like an old photograph, out-of-focus to begin with. Sasuke's muscles were relaxing, although his leg still hurt, and he let them. This indifference was an interesting skin to not having any sort of plan. It was almost luxurious.

“I was also instructed I could give you water if you expressed interest,” the Anbu said. “Are you interested in some water?”

Sasuke was thirsty, but some myopic, sullen stubbornness flared up at the thought of being fed. Orochimaru had done his best to beat it out of him, but apparently it was back now. “I remember you,” he said instead.

The Anbu smiled again, with a shade more feeling this time. Sasuke was surprised at the response, and didn't know why until he realized he had said it as a threat. “Very good. That probably means you didn’t receive brain damage.”

“Sai,” Sasuke said.

“Yes.”

“You were going to kill me.” He had been traveling with Naruto.

“Yes,” Sai confirmed with no change of inflection. “But I didn’t.”

Sasuke closed his eyes. He couldn't activate the sharingan now anyway. All of it, his injuries, his weakness, this Anbu, left him sore and vacant, shallow and reverberant as a puddle on glass. He had spent most of his life waiting. Behind the itch of impatience and frustration, this was similar. "Why not?"

Sai studied the tip of his brush for a moment. It looked like a calligraphy brush several times the normal size, which made about as much sense as anything. "Partly because I realized I could choose not to. But mostly because Naruto and Sakura told me about how close they were to you. I couldn't think of what that felt like, and I didn't want to kill you when I didn't know what that meant."

He had talked about Naruto, Sasuke remembered. He had come in, trailing Orochimaru, who had looked as pleased as if he had brought Sasuke a pet, and Sai had immediately started spouting some bullshit about how Naruto considered him a brother. It was made all the more annoying because Sasuke could still remember Naruto saying the same thing. Sasuke had been mildly satisfied to see the look of terror cross Sai's face at his genjutsu only until he realized the man was his replacement. Which was a stupid thought, irrational and inconvenient, barely worth mentioning, but it dulled the satisfaction anyway. Sai had talked like he thought Sasuke had spent any time thinking about Naruto. Sai had talked like he had been thinking about Naruto himself.

"How are you feeling?" Sai was asking now. It sounded rote, like he was reading off a list. Sasuke craned his head and saw he was reading off a list, written in Sakura's round, implacable handwriting.

Sasuke settled on, "My leg hurts."

Sai nodded. "That makes sense. Your thigh was shattered when we brought you in. Sakura and a medical team worked all night to repair it."

He remembered the break, the red haze that poured out of Naruto or the thing that had been Naruto, as he fell. It hadn't been his final injury, but it was the critical one. Sasuke remembered the Kyuubi's breath hot against his nose and mouth as he stared up at Naruto's face.

Sakura and a team. So he wasn't worth Tsunade's attention. That made sense. It had basically been a war. If Sai was his only guard, it couldn't have been one Konoha won easily. No matter how much Naruto pummeled him, they would still consider him a threat. And you wouldn't waste the Hokage's expertise on a traitor.

"If I behave, they might even give me a trial," he said. He didn't mean to say it out loud, but as the words floated around the room, they sounded oddly peaceful, only a little bitter. So that was settled then.

Sai gave him a look Sasuke couldn't decipher. "The ceremony will be over in a few hours," he said. "Everything will be decided afterwards. You should sleep if you can."

There were ceremonies Sasuke remembered from when he was small. After big missions, great public feats. The Hokage would give a speech, hand out some promotions, pin someone with a medal. The Uchiha were given a special section in the front of the auditorium and Sasuke's father had his own seat on the stage. "So that's where everyone is."

Sai misinterpreted. "If you are thinking of escaping, you should know that in addition to your restaints, your chakra has been temporarily sealed and there is a jounin team outside the door with orders to kill you on sight. I have similar orders to kill you if you attempt to leave."

"No," Sasuke said. He was smirking, he could feel it, and he was glad Sai was uneasy. "Kakashi and the others. They're such saps, you'd think they would come say goodbye."

Sai gave him another flat look and didn't answer. When Sasuke looked at him again, a minute or an hour later, he had a pad out and a smaller brush. A line of concentration ran perpendicular between his eyes.

Sasuke watched him work for a minute. It nettled a little that Sai had clearly dismissed him as a threat, but he couldn't feel much of anything right now. He heard a low humming and hoped it was the hospital equipment and not him. "What are you drawing?"

"You," said Sai, without looking up. His brush didn't even pause. "Would you like to see?"

Sasuke shrugged, then hissed between his teeth when it jolted his ribs. Sai either took that for an assent or just didn't care and held up the paper. It wasn't a likeness Sasuke could recognize, the strokes sparse like kanji except Sasuke couldn't make out the characters of his name. The ink only served to draw attention to the space around it, like a single line of footprints through a snowfield.

"Oh," Sasuke said.

Sai smiled again. "I used to work only in abstract. Lately, I've been sketching more realistic things, but sometimes it's nice to go back to what you used to do."

"I played the flute for a while," Sasuke contributed hazily. It had been his mother's idea.

"I read that practicing a musical instrument can be very soothing," Sai said. He added, ponderously. "I think I'm too old to take it it up now and become very good at it. Besides, I don't find that I often need to be soothed."

"Hm," said Sasuke. Returning to Konoha was an unthinkable option, but when he did think about it he assumed he would be strong and silent, something so powerful even the ninjas of Fire Country couldn't burn it down. Superior to the end. This dulcet, stupid conversation was unscripted, but it wasn't so bad. He realized it had been a long time since he had said anything inconsequential.

Sai examined his own work critically. "You know, at first I thought it was just you. But now that I look at it, I think I added Naruto in there too."

"Naruto," Sasuke repeated, staring at the ceiling. His first thought when he saw Sakura again after all those years was so that means.... His first thought when Naruto charged into the crater right on her heels was he got tall. When Naruto screamed his name in a hoarse, clawing voice, Sasuke thought he would never... and then he cut it off, jerked it to a stop like water from the tap. The last thing he thought before blacking out and waking up here, while Naruto's body was on his chest, as warm and smothering as heat shimmer off rock, was that he had beaten Orochimaru and Itachi was gone. Sasuke was stronger than both of them, but Naruto was better than he was. Maybe he could run, maybe he could survive if Naruto hated him, because Sasuke couldn't see any other way it would work.

"Yes, Naruto," Sai said. He was looking at Sasuke with large, insistent eyes. Sasuke wished he could work up the energy to be angry at him. He suspected Sai deserved it. "To be honest, I still don't really understand the bond he says he has with you. But I think I envy it. It's made him strong."

It wasn't him, it was the Kyuubi, but it was getting harder to talk and Sasuke didn't think it was his secret to share. Sasuke had to clear his throat before he said, "I have a request."

Sai put down his brush. "A request?"

"Yeah." He might be an enemy and a traitor, but he had never given up. He had done what he set out to do and he had never looked back, and that was the ninja way, he thought, or maybe just Naruto's way. But Sasuke was having difficulty keeping his eyes open and for the first time the two seemed like they might be the same thing. He was the last Uchiha and in the end, he was home, and hopefully that was enough. "If I'm going to die... if my sentence is death... I want Naruto to be the one to kill me."

He heard Sai respond, the words low and deep, but before he could catch their meaning he slipped into sleep, content.

**

While Sasuke drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few hours, Sai drew trees. There was no particular reason for it, but more and more Sai simply did things simply on whim and usually this pleased him.

Sasuke murmured and twitched when the horns blew low halfway through the ceremony, but didn't seem to wake. He started in his sleep when the cheers rang out, but quickly settled down. There was a soggy quality to the applause, the yelling, but something imminently joyful too. Sai thought he understood the conflict, the juxtaposition of this celebration, death and rebirth, respect and hope, with love woven all through. Kakashi had told him it was very complex and he prided himself on that. He would have liked to been there, but he had been specifically appointed the task of watching Sasuke and that was an honor of its own sort.

The crowd thundered for a long, long time before the procession began.

It lead, as Sai had been told in a private briefing, around the village according to tradition. Then, when most of it had broken off, it wound its way to the hospital. Sai heard the footsteps in the hall and stood up as the door opened and the Hokage entered alone.

"Congratulations, Naruto," Sai said, and that, amid all the other noise, woke Sasuke up.

"Thanks," Naruto said. He looked thinner without the bulk of his sweatsuit. His posture was different too in the robes, taller, more careful. Naruto didn't spare Sai a glance, just stared at Sasuke from under the brim of his crown, his eyes unusually wide, unusually focused.

Sasuke was staring right back, his chest moving with slow, careful breathes. For the first time since he had entered the hospital he was utterly, captivatedly still. His gaze only flickered once, looking at the scratched forehead protector Naruto was squeezing in his fist, the sealed pardon.

"Hey Sai," Naruto said. "Do me a favor and scram for a minute, okay?"

"As you wish," Sai said. He bowed before he left the room. His assignment was to guard a potentially dangerous traitor, but Sasuke was secure in the Hokage's hands.


End file.
